


Wings Unfolding

by recrudescence



Category: Spartacus Series (TV), Spartacus: Blood and Sand
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-09
Updated: 2010-05-09
Packaged: 2017-10-09 09:21:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/85652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recrudescence/pseuds/recrudescence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a little bit of backstory, since these two never had much of a chance for any. Contains standard Spartacus fare: sex, blood, creative swearing, and a small reference to non-con. Also pigeons. But not all at once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wings Unfolding

**Author's Note:**

> Any historical inaccuracies are my own. Or, um, the show's. The fall of Carthage was _when_, now?

Manius Aelius Scaeva was eighty-four, amiable, able to wield a sword admirably with either hand, and had a trick of writing with both hands simultaneously. Former centurion from the first cohort, he had risen through the ranks and social classes until treating himself to a lush retirement. Still keen-minded, still regarded as wise and worth heeding when he spoke. Well worth having on any lanista's side, should the lanista seek to ingratiate himself with a man who had served his time and earned his spoils and currently spent his days entertaining himself.

Iapetus, an Illyrian who had come to the ludus some six months before, boasted a string of recent victories and Batiatus was wearing his successes like a crown at every turn. Having an impromptu match for an old legion veteran's pleasure, pitting Iapetus against a hulking guard of Scaeva's, was a chance too perfect to ignore. Especially after Scaeva's face creased into a wide smile and, "Best my man and there could be rewards," was uttered inches away from Batiatus's ear.

Throwing around such remarks could lead a lanista to assume "rewards" indicated coin or future opportunities for advancement, not a pat on the head and a downcast slave boy. And when Iapetus stood over the guard, bare feet smearing blood luridly across the tiles, Batiatus was cupping the lower half of his face to smother a grin.

"He's a good lad, isn't he?" Scaeva was chuckling mildly, as if he'd been watching a pair of grandchildren instead of warriors.

"One of the best." Eying the gory tableau, wineglass in hand, Batiatus inclined his head. "Would you prefer he finished?"

Scaeva threw back his bewigged head and laughed, which elicited an uncertain smile from Batiatus. "Have you lost your fucking mind? This isn't the arena. Go on, be a good sport, spare him. This time."

"As you say." And the guard scowled and heaved himself to his feet when Iapetus retreated.

"Gratitude for an entertaining evening." Scaeva was cheerfully clapping Batiatus on the back as he rose. "Have a token of appreciation on your way out, won't you?" Waving over a figure from the shadows, someone slim and brown-skinned, with dark eyes that widened with realization as Batiatus's own clouded over.

The boy was empty-handed and Scaeva offered no more, only repeating, "Wonderfully amusing." As he no doubt opined any lanista should be, nothing more. Wonderful for providing entertainment, but not to be taken seriously.

Batiatus lowered his head and murmured thanks.

Barca, a respectful but unmistakable presence behind his dominus's left shoulder, watched.

\---

 

"I need another fucking slave like I need another hole in my ass."

Lucretia pragmatically surveyed him. "Better that he's given you something than that he hadn't."

"As someone who's transcended all the fucking theatrics of the legion, you'd think he could appreciate seeing a man with actual aspirations."

"Then take comfort in the fact that he'll die soon enough."

"And leave everything he has to his prig of a son who won't have anything to do with _infames_. "

"Sell the gift, then, Quintus. Something this inconsequential need not weigh on you so heavily"

"I'd rather have nothing to do with it at all. He might at least have saddled us with a girl."

She was smiling. "Visit him for a repeat performance once his wits have started to leave him and perhaps you'll have your pick. Now make due with what you have for tonight. Come to bed."

 

\---

 

"This," Batiatus declared sardonically, "is how a former _primus pilus_ shows his appreciation. Utilize it as you like. I have no use for him."

He disappeared from the balcony and back into the villa when Doctore nodded curtly. The slave from the Scaeva household stood at his side, his hands locked tightly together in front of him and his toes digging into the sand as if for purchase. There was the flex and ripple of strength under sun-gold skin, but still the boy exuded an air of delicacy.

Barca came to them still patching himself together, nearly broken but stubborn as can be, after killing the chief and taking the title Beast of Carthage. Butchering his own neighbors one by one until there were none left, as feral and savage as his people were alleged, perpetuating the romantic notion right up until his arrival at the ludus. Being eyed and sized up, but letting it roll right off of him and showing nothing. This new arrival, on the other hand, was obviously not hard enough to endure it, and his nervousness was noticeable—gladiators were not accustomed to having someone so young and untried in their midst, and the boy was clearly not accustomed to being among them. Barca marked him in passing, prepared to let him fend for himself, prove his worth and find his way as everyone else did.

Life in the ludus was one perpetual rite of passage, and one he had initially resisted with every ounce of his willpower. Living like an animal was just punishment for someone who had put so many of his own people to death, and he was reconciled with it, but balked at relinquishing his dignity entirely. Barca never accepted whores when rewarded, though he took to bed once or twice with newly bought slaves who were killed whilst training not long afterward. Once he had established himself as a gladiator worthy of the name, Ashur would regard him with sagacious eyes and obsequious words, probing to find out if there was something more exotic he preferred. Barca despised asking Ashur for anything and, for a satisfactory stretch of time, Ashur left him alone.

Then came the sweltering afternoon that found him cupping his hands around a crippled pigeon near the edge of the cliff, ignoring the eyes upon him, taking it to the medicus. "Splint it."

"It's a fucking bird."

Barca muted him with a glance. "And you're going to splint its fucking wing."

Ashur had sought him out afterward, ever eager to learn another man's weakness. "Is it birds you want?"

Without looking at him, Barca had pursed his lips. "Place ten denarii on the new man, the Gaul. When he wins, we will revisit this." Maybe admitting anything to Ashur wasn't so much losing a little of himself as it was reopening it in this new environment. One he seemed unlikely to leave any time soon.

Doctore sent the boy for water and Barca did his best to think no more about him.

 

\---

 

He had been given one to himself after several successes. Smelling of dank walls and fresh straw, now holding two crates of pigeons that quietly ruffled against one another in the scant rays of sunlight the cell's window afforded. It was a cramped space only slightly more enviable than the communal quarters, but it was his own. There had been some curiosity when Barca began buying pets with some of his winnings, so incongruous for someone of his visage and reputation, but because of these things no one chided or questioned him, merely accepted it with the occasional shrug

Taking umbrage was only natural when the boy slipped into his cell.

"I would see to the birds." Candles, bowl, stark block of a table: all overturned as Barca seized hold of the form bent over the crates, pinning his back to the bars facing the hall. "For my dominus, before, I would attend the dovecote," the boy explained hurriedly, his face twisting in pain. "I meant t--"

"You _meant_," spat Barca, taking a half-step back and feeling the boy's frame shudder as he drew in a breath.

"Apologies." His wide, dark eyes flickered to the half-empty sack of cracked seeds and grain. "They were restless. I meant to feed them. Do they truly require nothing more?"

More space. More light. A more capable master. Barca loosened his hold from the soft hair he had been gripping. "It's enough."

The boy paused as he was taking his leave. "And are you permitted to let them fly?"

"When the day is done. They return for food. They know nothing else."

 

\---

 

He had no intentions of unduly manhandling the boy again. Nor of allowing similar treatment from anyone else, though Barca never expected this information to be made public. But there wasn't a thought in his mind beyond dragging the offender off of him when advances proved untoward.

"I won him." Iapetus with his teeth bared, feet braced, fists at the ready.

"_Dominus_ was given him," Barca corrected, with a hand to the throat. "Keep your cock where it belongs or I'll see the problem cut off at the source," at which Iapetus snarled and stalked from his cell back into the practice yard.

Barca turned.

"Gratitude," murmured the boy with the name he pretended not to remember, and Barca said nothing and walked away.

"I'm called Pietros," sounding so calm and quiet, despite everything. There was the rustle of fabric as he drew his clothing into place.

"Nobody gives a piss what you're called."

"And you're Barca. Of Carthage. I'd heard of you."

In spite of himself, Barca faced him again. Pietros was never frightened, treating the gladiators with deference and doing his duties without complaint. Given by another household, very probably enslaved there since birth, he was adapting more quickly than Barca would have guessed. Somehow, his curved fingers found their way under that smoothly rounded chin, guiding it up incrementally. "You could have been willingly purchased for your prettiness or whatever other skills you possess, but were instead donated on his account. Iapetus might think that makes you a little bit his."

"Then I am," Pietros said lightly, making an alarmingly childish grimace for a moment. "Not by choice, but by circumstances, and there's no changing them."

Barca looked at him. Tanned and young, unblemished by age or abuse. "This is new for you."

"I served the house." He smiled, evasively gesturing with one vague hand. "The gardens."

Barca could see it. A house slave from childhood onward, also tending the gardens and the dovecote, kept close to the home and out of harm's way. Gravitating towards the birds, one of the only spots of softness in this place, seemed only natural. "All your life?"

"My mother...she was sold as a slave when when Mithridates overthrew Nicodemes in Bithynia. They would say my father was a Persian, or a prince, or someone of Mithridates's army. Or all three. The story was embellished after she died to increase my market value." His voice caught slightly when Barca carefully took him by the shoulders, turning him this way and that to inspect for damage. "Scaeva was charmed by the tale, having fought against Mithridates in Bithynia himself, and he kept me for several years."

"Perhaps he's become less present in his old age," Barca muttered, and briefly allowed his face to register his satisfaction when the boy laughed. "If Iapetus or any of those stinking cunts touch you uninvited, they'll be breathing out of their assholes." He almost regretted wording it so profanely, as if the house of Batiatus wasn't profane by definition.

But Pietros only nodded seriously, pushing onto the balls of his feet to press his lips to Barca's cheek. "Much appreciated."

The ludus was a step down in many ways, but better than some. The boy could very well be poxed and prostrate in a brothel, parting his legs for whoever saw fit to command it. Fetching and carrying for gladiators was illustrious by comparison. Of course, he could also be a rich man's plaything, dandled and cosseted and caring for nothing. With very little mental effort, Barca could see himself filling the other half of that role just as easily, but dreaming was only that.

 

\---

 

"The Gaul has earned his place well." Wincing as he ruefully rubbed at a shoulder, Barca reached to graze Pietros's cheek with his other hand. "I should keep wagering on him. I think I just lost enough coin to buy you out from under Dominus's nose."

The boy smiled politely and proffered the water skin. "I am worth little."

"Iapetus would argue otherwise." Worth the smear of knuckle-shaped bruises blossoming over Barca's ribs.

Pietros knelt and touched them, brow creasing, not seeming to notice when Barca tensed at the sensation of fingers skimming his skin. "What can I do?"

One thing came to mind with the boy on his knees before him, but Barca stepped back. "Tend the columbarium," he said shortly, giving an ironical smirk at the lofty word applied to his makeshift aviary.

"I will." The boy's face lit up, after a moment's hesitation. "Do you mean it?"

Barca made no reply. When he returned at the end of the day, the birds had been fed and were settled on new straw.

The same was true the day after that. And again the next day. After a time, Barca acknowledged to himself that Pietros assisting with the birds had become the rule and not the exception. It did no harm. Nor did Barca regularly encountering him cradling a dappled pigeon in both hands, smoothing the feathers along its back again and again. Lost in thought and whispering occasionally. He joined him, sometimes, the two of them sitting close on the floor or the narrow bed, scarcely speaking.

"These." He let the end of one finger trail against the cool metal cresting one ear. It glinted in the dimness of the room, no doubt one of Pietros's few tangible reminders of having been a house slave. "Why do you wear such things?" Silver shining at his ears and wrists, as out of place in the ludus as stars in the sea.

"Because they are mine. What else should I do with them?"

"From your dominus, before." And then, when Pietros did not deny it, "Did you lie with him?"

"No. I was a reminder of his halcyon days in the legion. He enjoyed that."

"Really?" Barca said sarcastically, though his his hands were gentle as they lifted the bird from Pietros's smaller ones and settled it back into its place. "Then why would he throw you out like shit from a bucket?"

The boy never flinched, smoothly lifting a shoulder, but his eyes were averted. "His nephew favored me and his nephew's wife did not approve. Concessions had to be made." He stepped from the cell without another word.

In addition to placing a wager on Crixis, Barca arranged for Ashur to make a purchase during his next venture outside the ludus walls. Plain silver, but moon-bright, and easily fastened at the boy's throat as he slept.

 

\---

 

Lithe and golden-limned in the torchlight, silver still gleaming at his neck. Another exception gradually evolving into a rule. Pietros grasping back at Barca's thigh to draw him in deeper, mouth dropping open around a sigh and Barca _pushing_. Face nudging against the damp, bent nape of that bared neck; Barca's fingers splayed against the silky-smooth skin of his abdomen, of his hip. Lapping there with heated words and slow-hot swipes of tongue. " Sweet boy...move for me." Oiled and ready, bending and willing, pleading for it so nicely. And he _moved_, barely after Barca uttered the word, body arching and undulating with a liquid grace all his own, searingly hot-hard and spilling over into his hand with a small strangled cry.

Slower, more languid, sometimes, holding him close amidst the cooing of sky-gray birds in the muted coolness before dawn; Barca's fingers feather-soft on his boy's face. "Thank the gods Dominus cares only for girls. He might never have passed you on to Doctore otherwise."

"Be careful in bestowing your thanks." One leg threading between both of his own, a light hand taking its time tracing patterns over his chest. "This is the man who took you from your home."

"Carthage fell and still Rome did not have enough to sate her, continuing to quell rebellions and torment us for sport. He may have reaped the benefits of that, but he was not the cause of them."

Pietros curved against him, chin tucked against one shoulder. "But would you return if you could?"

He held him tighter. "Yes. Even if it took ten years here to bring it about."

"It may yet be possible."

"And where would you be in ten years?" His voice was very quiet and the brush of Pietros's lips against his jaw caused his eyes to slide half-closed. "Still polishing armor and passing out practice swords? Entering the arena yourself? I would not have you do either."

The boy's hands were cool and sure against the planes of Barca's back. Pietros kissed him. "I would be with you."

Barca placed no bets that night.


End file.
